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Posted on Thu, Jun. 19, 2003 in
The Miami Herald.
HELLO, FIDEL? Prank gets foul-mouthed response
By Christina Hoag. Choag@herald.com.
They did it again.
Two Miami disc jockeys, who made international headlines with their prank
phone call to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in January, say they
played a similar practical joke on Cuba's Fidel Castro on Tuesday.
In January, they pretended to be Castro to get Chávez on the line.
This time, they pretended to be Chávez, Castro's close friend and protégé.
The man said to be Castro spewed a few choice expletives when he learned the
callers were really Enrique Santos and Joe Ferrero, hosts of El Vacilón
de la Mañana on WXDJ-FM (95.7) El Zol, a Spanish-language salsa station.
''It was not the response we were expecting,'' said Santos, who was besieged
by Latin American and European media on Wednesday. "It was the first time
the mass media has heard him express himself like that.''
There was no acknowledgement from the Cuban government that Castro had
talked to the DJs. But Santos said he had no doubt he reached the man in charge.
''You could hear it in his voice,'' he said.
Santos and Ferrero said they got through to the Cuban leader using a ploy
similar to the one they used to play the practical joke on Chávez. They
got the Venezuelan leader to believe he was speaking with Castro by using pieces
of a tape of the Cuban's voice.
On Tuesday, it was Castro's turn to be taken in. The irreverent DJs played
snippets of their conversation with Chávez, leading the call's recipient
to believe that Chávez was indeed waiting on the line.
That allowed Ferrero, who used a Venezuelan accent to pose as ''Lieutenant
Camilo,'' to penetrate several layers of secretaries and aides and finally be
connected to the man said to be Castro.
Ferrero pretended the call was an emergency, saying that Chávez had
misplaced a suitcase containing sensitive documents during the leaders' recent
trip to Argentina for the inauguration of President Néstor Kirchner.
''We freaked out,'' Santos said. "This was one call and we got through.
We had butterflies in our stomachs.''
After a confusing, four-minute back-and-forth in which the DJs covered their
ruse by saying there were problems with the satellite line, Santos broke in to
reveal that they were phoning from a Miami station and called Castro a murderer.
From the other end came a string of profanities.
Damian Fernandez, professor of international relations at Florida
International University, called the prank "silly.''
''It's not a very good image for Miami,'' he said.
Democracy Movements wants to take its memorial flotilla into Cuban
waters
By ADRIANA CORDOVI. Acordovi@herald.com
Leaders of the Democracy Movement have asked for a Coast Guard permit to
take their annual memorial for the 1994 sinking of a refugee boat to Cuba's
shores, the group announced at a press conference Thursday.
After the Coast Guard denied the Cuban exile group a permit that would have
allowed them to leave a ''security zone'' in the Florida Straits during last
year's memorial, group leaders are taking a different approach -- applying for a
''cultural exchange'' permit.
Under the pending application, Democracy Movement leaders would be allowed
to dock at Havana's Hemingway Marina July 13 and take donated books to
independent libraries on the island. The Coast Guard has not responded to their
request.
Ramon Saul Sanchez, the Democracy Movement's founder, called the application
''a symbolic gesture'' intended to allow them to enter Cuban waters.
''I always have faith in people,'' he said. "We've already been denied
permits so many times that we continue to argue our case.''
The group's members maintain that they have the right to return to their
homeland.
Last year the Coast Guard denied the permit, citing a 1995 incident when a
Cuban gunboat bumped a Democracy Movement vessel during the group's first
flotilla. Miami-Dade County Commissioner Pedro Reboredo, who was on the vessel
Democracia, lost a toe.
The Coast Guard also said exiles cannot go into Cuban seas to conduct a
ceremony.
''We're asking for what is granted to any other person,'' Sanchez said.
If the Coast Guard denies the permit, he said the exile group would
challenge the decision in court.
In 1996, after a Cuban MiG jet shot down two planes belonging to Brothers to
the Rescue, another exile group, the Clinton administration established the
security zone. The rule, which was renewed by President Bush, requires a permit
before a U.S.-registered boat can travel within 12 miles of Cuban shores.
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